Kevin McCarthy is engaged in a difficult campaign to become the next speaker of the House. Donald Trump has stepped in on the debate, urging his congressional backers to put an end to McCarthy’s opposition strategies and quit “playing a very dangerous game.”
“Look, Kevin has put in a lot of effort, in my opinion. In an interview with Breitbart News on Friday, Trump stated, “I think he deserves the chance. We can only hope that he will be very good, very strong, and obedient to everyone’s wishes.
The former president used the instance from 2015, when Paul Ryan took over as House Speaker after John Boehner resigned due to disagreements with the GOP hard-liners.
It’s a really risky game. Some undesirable events might occur. We had Boehner, who was an odd man, but we ultimately had Paul Ryan, who was ten times worse, Trump said to Breitbart. Paul Ryan was a terrible public speaker. He is, in my opinion, the worst speaker in history.
McCarthy is competing against five ardent Republicans for the position of speaker. Such opposition would prevent him from receiving the 218 votes he would need to be elected speaker given that House Republicans will possess 222 members in the upcoming Congress.
McCarthy has negotiated rules for the chamber that his opponents want to undermine the speakership behind closed doors, including allowing a single member to request a vote to remove the speaker. The Republican from California has so far opposed that.
Following the January 6, 2021 uprising, McCarthy and Trump experienced a brief falling out, with McCarthy even urging that Trump quit during a recorded private phone call. However, the two swiftly patched things up, with McCarthy visiting Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida a few weeks later.
Trump said in his interview with Breitbart that many of the lawmakers who are opposed to McCarthy’s speakership bid are fans of his but he did not specifically name them.
Many of those who are against Kevin are my friends. I believe that practically all of them have a strong propensity to support Trump and me. But you’re playing a very dangerous game, I have to tell them, and I have told them that, “Trump remarked. “You can find yourself in some extremely dire circumstances. I give the Boehner to Ryan illustration. Do you get what I’m saying? It might be the end of the world.
McCarthy warned that if the five conservative holdouts, Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Bob Good of Virginia, and Matt Rosendale of Montana, don’t budge in their opposition to him, the hard-won narrow majority of the House of Representatives could be jeopardised.
McCarthy said on the broadcast that the critics are threatening to jeopardise the entirety of the House Republican programme and that fundamental choices on legislation and investigations will be “all in jeopardy” and that “we’re still continuing to talk, but they have not moved.”
The public pressure campaign McCarthy is waging against his detractors, such as Biggs, who last week declared his own run for the speaker’s gavel, has been sharply escalated by McCarthy’s remarks.
Trump isn’t the only one telling House Republicans to get their act together, though. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which leans right, stated in a piece published on Saturday that those seeking McCarthy’s removal “don’t seem to have any constructive reasons to oppose Mr. McCarthy beyond a desire to steal the media attention or blow things up.”
The editorial board stated, in reference to “GOP dysfunction since Election Day,” that “Republicans are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight – except at each other.”
